o go on. Old Chief
Tessouat holds solemn powwow, passing the peace pipe round from hand to
hand in silence, before the warriors rise to answer Champlain. Then
with the pompous gravity of Abraham dickering with the desert tribes,
they warn Champlain it is unsafe to go farther. Beyond the Ottawa is
the Nipissing, where dwell the Sorcerer Indians--a treacherous people.
Beyond the Nipissing is the great Fresh Water Sea of the Hurons. They
will grant Champlain canoes, but warn him against the trip. Later the
interpreter comes with word they have changed their minds. Champlain
must _not_ go on. It is too dangerous. Attack would involve war.

"What," demanded Champlain, rushing into the midst of the council tent,
"not go? Why, my young man, here"--pointing to Vignau--"has gone to
that country and found no danger."

What Vignau thought at that stage is not told. The Indians turned on
him in fury.

"Nicholas, did _you_ say _you_ had visited the Nipissings?"

Vignau hems and haws, and stammers, "Yes."

"Liar," roars the chief. "You slept here every night, and if you went
to the Nipissings, you went in a dream." Then to Champlain, "Let him
be tortured."

Champlain took the fellow to his own tent. Vignau reiterated his
story. Champlain took him back to the council. The Indians jeered his
answers and tore the story he told to tatters, showing Champlain how
utterly wrong Vignau's descriptions were.

That night, on promise of forgiveness, Vignau fell on his knees and
confessed the imposture to Champlain. When the fur canoes came down
the Ottawa to trade at Montreal, Champlain accompanied them to the St.
Lawrence, and sailed for France. His exploration had been an
ignominious failure.

{52} Champlain was ever Knight of the Cross as well as explorer. He
longed with the zeal of a missionary to reclaim the Indians from
savagery, and at last raised funds in France to pay the expense of
bringing four or five Recollets--a branch of the Franciscan Friars--to
Quebec in May of 1615. With the peaked hood thrown back, the gray garb
roped in at the waist, the bare feet protected only by heavy sandals,
the Recollets landed at Quebec, and with cannon booming, white men all
on bended knee, held service before the amazed savages.

Of the Recollets, it was agreed that Joseph le Caron should go west to
the Hurons of the Sweet Water Sea. Accompanied by a dozen Frenchmen,
the friar ascended the Ottawa in July, passed that Al